Howard Morgan freed Wednesday but…

‘Ten-year struggle” still a legal nightmare

By Chinta Strausberg

After fighting for three-years to free her husband from prison, Rosalind Morgan, the wife of former Chicago police officer Howard Morgan who was shot 28 times by four white cops, Wednesday confirmed her husband is finally home.

Saying “this has been a ten-year struggle,” Mrs. Morgan told this reporter her husband’s release poses even more legal challenges because she said the Illinois Prison Review Board “went back to Gov. Quinn and asked that a stipulation be placed on his commutation—a three-year parole period.”

Mr. Morgan’s release comes at a time when state law enforcement officials and some police are furious at former Gov. Quinn for commuting the 40-year sentence of Mr. Morgan who at the time of the incident was a railroad detective.

When told many activists are fearful that police will try to frame him once again, Mrs. Morgan said, “God saved him from 28 bullets. They can’t touch him,” she told this reporter.  However, supporters of the Morgan’s have asked the Nation of Islam (NOI) to provide security to Mr. Morgan.

Admittedly overwhelmed by the problems the commutation of her husband’s sentence has brought, Mrs. Morgan referred to his second trial.

“Judge Clayton Crane did not allow those jurors to know anything about the first acquittal. They never brought his vest into court. He was acquitted of the shooting. He should never have been retried,” she said. Mrs. Morgan said her husband was not tried by a jury of his peers explaining in the second trial there were 10 whites, 1 Hispanic and 1 black.

“I want people to understand that this is not a pardon and that there is still a struggle for a pardon and expungement,” Mrs. Morgan said.

Interviewed while she was on her way to Dixon, Illinois to pick up her husband and after he arrived home, Mrs. Morgan said her husband’s health is declining but that “he is protected by God. “

Mr. Morgan, a former 21-year Chicago police veteran who at the time of the incident was a detective for a railroad, was driving down the wrong way on February 21, 2005 when he was stopped by four white Chicago police. One of them, a rookie cop, reportedly saw his holster and shouted, “gun” triggering the firing of a barrage of bullets at Morgan who was hit 28 times.

In 2007, Morgan was found not guilty of battery and of not discharging a gun as the states attorney’s office had claimed, but the jury had no verdict on the attempted murder charges resulting in a second trial and his conviction in January of 2012. With a battery of uniform police in the courtroom, Judge Clayton Crane sentenced Morgan to 40-years in prison even though an eyewitness said she did not see Morgan with a gun.

On Gov. Quinn’s last day in office, he commuted the sentence of Morgan. Several activists wondered why didn’t he simply pardon him. Quinn also commuted the sentences of two other prisoners, Tyrone Hood, 51 and Anthony Dansberry, 51, both convicted of murder.

While glad her husband is free, Mrs. Morgan said putting a three-year parole sentence on her husband’s commutation is “totally ridiculous. We will fight to change that.”

But State’s Attorney Anita Alvarez is also upset that is with former Gov. Quinn for commuting the “prison sentences of convicted criminals without any explanation or justification as to why these defendants were selected to have their sentences commuted,” she said in a press statement.

Sally Daly, a spokesperson for Alvarez, said there is a process which would allow prosecutors “to be provided sufficient notice, given the opportunity to object in the interests of public safety and allowed to provide facts and argument to members of the Prisoner Review Board so they may make educated recommendations to the Governor before he takes action on such significant requests.

“Most importantly, that process also provides victims and family members of victims of crime an opportunity to have their voices heard. Sadly, that process was circumvented by Quinn,” the statement said.

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